Italy’s center-right pitches to try to form next government

ROME (AP) — The head of the center-right coalition that won the most votes in Italy’s inconclusive March 4 election is urging Italy’s president to give the alliance a mandate to try to find a parliamentary majority.

League leader Matteo Salvini emerged from the latest round of consultations Monday insisting that the bloc best represented the will and hopes of Italians. Salvini was flanked by ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi and Georgia Meloni of the small right-wing Brothers of Italy party, whose conservative forces together won 37 percent of the vote.

The populist 5-Star Movement, which won 32 percent, once again urged Salvini to form an alliance with them. Salvini has refused the League’s demand that he ditch Berlusconi.